Piracy site that charges money

Yep, I found one of mine there this morning and will be sending a takedown notice to them. My publisher has warned about this site in the past and asked us to be on the lookout for them. Damn pirates.

Scum of the earth.

Several people on a Romance loop on Yahoo have tried to send take down notices. The guy either doesn't respond, or posts the notice with private info for mockery. There is a Paypal button, but the pay site even has a bad rep. You might have more luck with complaining to Paypal.

Thanks, Fil. That's...not encouraging. I'll warn my Siren yahoo group about this guy posting personal info. What a scumbag!

Krystal Heart said:

Someone out there is pirating the stories from authors at AW, or just everybody? Can legal action be taken against this person by the publishers?

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The site is based out of China, so not sure how much could be done.

Beachgirl said:

The site is based out of China, so not sure how much could be done.

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Well then, I guess we're all screwed.

Stacia Kane also has a few books listed on the site...Unholy Ghost and Sacrificial Magic being two I found.

thothguard51 said:

Stacia Kane also has a few books listed on the site...Unholy Ghost and Sacrificial Magic being two I found.

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Then at least I'm in good company.

*stomps off to make a copyright pirate voodoo doll*

Beachgirl said:

The site is based out of China, so not sure how much could be done.

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China is getting better about cracking down on such sites, but they have to know about them first.

Yep, one of mine is up there. But they used the original fug cover, so hopefully nobody has wanted to download it. lol.

Yeah, based in China. I'd go after the ISP if there is one and PayPal as well. Assholes. Sorry to those of you who have your works out there. Frack this chode.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you know it's a pirate site?

ETA: Never mind. They have several of my OOP books. And they have PASSION BLUE. I'm going to sic Amazon on them.

- Victoria

victoriastrauss said:

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you know it's a pirate site?

ETA: Never mind. They have several of my OOP books. And they have PASSION BLUE. I'm going to sic Amazon on them.

- Victoria

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Victoria,

That's a great question in general.

So, I'm a person out there looking for ebooks. To me, it looks like a site with ebooks, like Bookbub is. Now, I get all my ebooks from Amazon, because they have the ones I want, but I wouldn't know the linked site in the OP is a pirate site.

DMCA take-down notices won't work as the site is based out of China, as others have noted, so the best way to combat them is to direct your (or your publishers' complaints to the various financial services that the site uses to process payments. Paypal, Mastercard and Visa at least all have ways to contact them to let them know of someone infringing upon your copyright, so that they'll cut off the site's access to their cards.

Here's the link to Mastercard's policy on the matter, and the one for Visa.

Follow the money, and hit them there.

My guess is that their big source of profit is from getting people's credit card information. Which folks willingly sent them.

Susan Littlefield said:

Victoria,

That's a great question in general.

So, I'm a person out there looking for ebooks. To me, it looks like a site with ebooks, like Bookbub is. Now, I get all my ebooks from Amazon, because they have the ones I want, but I wouldn't know the linked site in the OP is a pirate site.

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There's a couple of scammy things right offhand (admittedly I'm writing this already knowing it's a pirate site): There's the "request ebook" page (why do they have that, why don't they already have the ebook you want? It would seem they either have for sale the ebook you want, or they don't because they're not licensed from the publisher), and that page has a hotmail (free email) address, as used by scammers everywhere. I also see a gmail address elsewhere on the site. The irony is it's not that hard to make a "better" looking site, but they're content (or they may only know enough) to make it "good enough" get orders from people who don't recognize these things as being unprofessional.

Also, report these email addresses to hotmail and gmail as being related to illegal activity, as well as to PayPal. The addresses will likely get deleted - they'll create new addresses and put them on the site, but it will be an annoyance that slows them down.

It's also a telltale that the English of the site is very bad. "What' New". "Difficulty to Pay". And their FAQs read like they were written by giving a monkey a typewriter.

They have one of mine on there. I knew it was dodgy straight away because I know who the resellers are my publisher distributes my books through and this is not one of them.

Apparently, from what others have told me, it's no good complaining to PayPal, since despite the PayPal button on the site, it's not PayPal you pay through when you click it. I expect PayPal will have already done what they can to stop the site using a fake button, but no doubt with little success.

I wonder if people actually get the books they buy from there? They are supposed to be delivered to your email within 12 hours (another warning sign, because what kind of ebook seller does that? 12 hours! I want to read it NOW! ) How many never show up? But plenty of spam does and plenty of dodgy transactions on your credit card do too.

I've heard around that apparently the site is just a scam to get identity-stealing info and doesn't deliver any books. Karma, I suppose!

I generally know pirate sites because my publishers provide a full list of their authorized online vendors. So anyone else is a pirate.

My books appear to not be there. Should I be flattered that I am not yet worthy of pirates' attention, or just lucky?

I guess I've arrived. My book is there, too.